My children and I went to see the Macy’s fireworks in NYC on July 4th this year. The West Side Highway, a thoroughfare typically congested with cars throughout the day, was now closed off to all traffic. And so we placed our blankets on the solid yellow lines and ate our salads and sandwiches as we waited for the sun to set. The traffic lights above our heads, oblivious to the altered circumstances, kept changing from green, to yellow to red. About 30 minutes after we had settled down comfortably I began to look around at the expanding mass of people around us, and couldn’t help smiling. Here in midtown Manhattan, celebrating American independence, was the most wonderfully diverse group of people you ever want to see. In front of us sat an East-Asian group – an extended family spanning three generations, crammed shoulder to shoulder on a single blanket. To my left were two Middle-Eastern couples with three young children between them, dining on Subway sandwiches. To my right, an Asian family: Mom, dad, and three young boys. The family behind us was conversing contentedly in Spanish, bringing the total number of languages spoken in just this minuscule corner of the city to five. The scene brought home to me, once again, the inescapable reality of life in the 21st century, which is that most of us come into direct contact with cultural difference almost on a daily basis. And with minority group members comprising more than 30 percent of the workforce in the U.S., Americans are increasingly conscious of the need to address intercultural issues.
People in the field of intercultural communication often talk about visible and hidden differences. Visible differences are those human disparities which are immediately noticeable: skin color, dress code, language, food, music, etc. Hidden differences consist of the beliefs and values which impact a person’s behavior, but which may be difficult to perceive or comprehend. Ting-Toomey and Chung illustrate this with the ‘iceberg metaphor of culture.’ At the tip of the iceberg is the Surface-Level Culture, the visible manifestations of culture: its artifacts, movies, music, and icons. This superficial component is small, but it is the only one that is discernible above the surface. Below is the Intermediate-Level Culture, consisting of symbols, meanings and norms. Underneath that is the Deep-Level Culture, the portion that includes traditions, beliefs and values. And way down, anchoring the iceberg to the ground below, are the Universal Human Needs, tying all of humanity together.
Companies whose representatives do business abroad say that the most challenging source of intercultural communication are the hidden differences. It is easy to see why. If your Chinese counterpart, dressed in Western clothes, refuses to meet your gaze, it may be difficult not to take it personally. And if your Indian contact speaks English fluently, but consistently fails to keep appointments, the underlying cultural roots of these miscommunications may elude you.
On the other hand, anyone who has ever tried to integrate into a culture will tell you that being visibly different is no small challenge to the cultural experience. Human beings have a long and painful history of intolerance when confronting difference, which is unfortunate, because our fascination with the surface structure may keep us from digging deeper, to the beliefs and values that define us, and then even deeper, to the Universal Human Needs that bring us all together. Instead, too often when faced with visible difference, we communicate our hostility through subtle language or nonverbal behavior. Psychologist Derald Wing Sue calls these derogatory behaviors, which are often done unconsciously, microagressions (see video below).
Here is a guest post written by Saada, the daughter of a Libyan ambassador to the U.N. and a member of the highly-respected Muntasser family. Saada, a feisty, intelligent woman, currently lives and works in New York City:
Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves; I wear my religion on my head. I am a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf, by choice, in NYC. As a result, I’ve had my share of eyebrow-raised and eyebrow-crossed looks. One of the most memorable ones came from an elderly woman sitting at a café on Broadway close to the Columbia University campus. I was walking down the street with my 3-year-old son, and the elderly woman at first smiled genuinely as she watched my son happily licking his ice-cream cone. Then she glanced up and saw me, the little boy’s mother, a woman whose hair and neck was covered by a colorful headscarf, and her nose suddenly turned up in horror and disgust.
At the time of the incident I was a graduate student, but now I am an ESL teacher working in NYC. To hint to potential employers about how I would dress if hired, I write ‘Arab-American’ in my resume. Still I get a looks of shock and surprise when I walk in for a job interview. At one interview I was asked to name my biggest teaching weakness. I responded honestly that I’ve had students leave or quit my class because they didn’t ‘like’ me on the first day.
But dealing with students is less challenging even than dealing with colleagues. I’ve been working at an ESL international school since January. The school has fifteen teachers. Three of the teachers have tried their best to avoid me from day one, and they still do. They stare at me as though I am an alien from another planet. One of the three spoke to me once, commenting that I must be very religious because I wear a headscarf in the heat and humidity of the NYC summer. Then there are some teachers who initially didn’t know how to behave around me, but they eventually figured out I was a human being just like them. A human being with many beliefs, one of which makes me dress in a visibly different manner. I have had colleagues admit to me that I am so different from what they expected. When I asked them why they would say, “you know, because of …”
I admit that it’s not easy having to work harder than others to prove myself, to make people look past my headscarf. I get frustrated sometimes at the absurdity of the questions coming from so-called educated and open-minded people. One of my female colleagues is originally from India, a place where Islam and headscarves are common. She informed me, with a mischievous smile, that I could take my headscarf off at work because my husband wasn’t around. This really upset me, and I asked her what she meant. She replied, “Oh, I’m sure you didn’t choose to wear a headscarf. It was probably forced onto you by your father or brother or husband.” I quickly set her straight. I told her that the decision to wear the headscarf was mine and mine alone. I also told her about how my father didn’t speak to me for a month when I first wore the headscarf in NYC in 1998 because he didn’t believe in it. I told her that true Islam is not about forcing people to do things. Islam, like other religions, is about personal belief. (Saada explained to me that her father had raised her to be a strong, modern woman, and he was somehow disappointed when she donned the headscarf. When he saw that she was serious about her education, and heard of her ambitions to teach English globally, he calmed down. She adds that since that time, 35 women in the Muntasser family have taken to wearing the headscarf, including her mother, two sisters, and eight cousins. CH)
The more interesting moments happen on the streets of NYC. I was getting out of the subway recently when a young African-American man told me that it was okay that I was bald, there was no need to hide it. Another episode happened on a bus. I was holding a Rolling Stones magazine (with Howard Stern on the cover) and looking for a seat. When I finally sat down, a middle-aged gentleman said, right to my face, “Oh, I wish I had a camera! You, with that headscarf on your head, reading Rolling Stones – it’s just priceless!”
I don’t condemn people for their reactions, at work, in the classroom, or on the street. I understand the human impulse to reject what is incomprehensible, what is different. The truth is that most people eventually come around. They stop judging me and start respecting me for who I am. As for those who choose to avoid me and buy into the stereotypes, all I can say is: Hey, it’s your loss!
Have questions or comments for Saada? Why don’t you share your experiences with visible differences?
@ Macy's Fireworks, NYC / July 4, 2011
@ Macy's Fireworks, NYC / July 4, 2011
References
Ting-Toomey, S. & Chung, L. C. (2005). Understanding Intercultural Communication. New York: Oxford University Press.
Confessions of a Cultural Hybrid 